JAN. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev overruled an earlier decision by the Constitutional Council to cancel voting in a parliamentary election in the town of Zhanaozen. Zhanaozen has been under a state-of-emergency since rioting on Dec. 16 killed at least 16 people.
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(News report from Issue No. 72, published on Jan. 13 2012)
JAN. 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president, extended a state-of-emergency by 26 days in Zhanaozen, the town near the Caspian Sea at the centre of rioting last month that killed 16 people. The state-of-emergency had been set to end on Jan. 5. It now ends on Jan. 31 and falls over a parliamentary election planned for Jan. 15.
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(News report from Issue No. 71, published on Jan. 5 2012)
DEC. 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Looking to impose his authority after the riots, Mr Nazarbayev sacked his son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, as head of the sovereign wealth fund. Most of the rioters had been ex-oil workers and, as head of the fund, Mr Kulibayev had been in charge of the state energy company. He was seen as a potential successor to Mr Nazarbayev. Umirzak Shukeyev, a deputy PM, replaced Kulibayev as head of the fund.
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(News report from Issue No. 71, published on Jan. 5 2012)
DEC. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Soccer’s governing body, FIFA, scrapped plans for Uzbekistan to host the women’s under-20 soccer world cup next year. FIFA said it had to re-schedule the competition in Japan because of technical issues. Human rights groups have been strongly critical of Uzbekistan in the past few months.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – An investigation by the International Boxing Association (AIBA) cleared Azerbaijan of trying to buy two gold medals at next year’s Olympic Games for $9m. The BBC made the bribery allegations during a TV news story. Another separate investigation by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) is due to report next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan faces a food shortage unless food rail wagons delayed in Uzbekistan are able to complete their journey, local media quoted the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Dushanbe, Alzira Ferreira, as saying. Tajik-Uzbek relations have worsened over the past year. Uzbekistan says a broken bridge has delayed the wagons.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Underlining a trend towards the virtual deification of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s parliament declared Dec. 1 to be a new public holiday. The 1st day in December will now be known as the Day of the First President. Mr Nazarbayev has been president since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – An underground metro opened in Almaty, 23 years after construction work started. Almaty hit a population of 1m people in the mid-1980s triggering the Soviet authorities to start building a metro system. This stopped in 1991 when the USSR collapsed but Kazakhstan has since spent $1.1b completing the metro.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A disputed parliamentary election in Russia on Dec. 4 triggered unprecedented anti-government street demonstrations in Russian cities, protests which will have worried leaders in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The people of Central Asia and the South Caucasus have strong historical, business, family and political ties with Russia and what happens there matters.
Politics in Kazakhstan is similarly aligned to Russia and the country is confronting growing pains. President Nursultan Nazarbayev also has to deal with a parliamentary election on Jan. 15.
Although Mr Nazarbayev’s position is far more secure than his Russian counterparts’ he faces lingering issues over his succession policy and commitment to genuine democracy. The compliant Kazakh media has steered away from covering the Russia protests in detail but Mr Nazarbayev certainly wouldn’t want them to linger.
In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the media is even more tightly controlled and the impact of the anti-government protests in Moscow will be softer but, again, if they are prolonged they will start to worry their leaders.
In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan is most prone to an impact from street demonstrations in Russia. Its police force stamped out anti-government protests during the first half of the year and demonstrations in Russia could embolden protesters again.
It is premature to talk of a Slavic Spring in Russia but there is an air of change and this attitude could start to drip into other former Soviet states.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
NOV. 28 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In probably her last main act as Kyrgyzstan’s president, Roza Otunbayeva launched a campaign to reduce bride kidnapping which affects an estimated 15,000 women a year. Bride kidnapping is the traditional term for the abduction of women who then, under pressure, often agree to marry their kidnapper. Ms Otunbayeva leaves office on Dec. 1.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
